Urban expansion and the consequent reduction in cultivated land have disrupted the balance between humans and the land. This study was conducted to characterize landscape patterns and understand how zoning and socioeconomic factors have impacted land-use change. Landscape metrics at the zoning area level were used to quantify changes in landscape patterns for both cultivated and built-up land in Guangzhou, China, from 1980 to 2015. The shift in the centroid tracks and regression analysis were applied to determine the impact of zoning and socioeconomic factors on land-use dynamics. Our results demonstrate an unprecedented period of urban expansion in Guangzhou. A substantial area of cultivated land has been transformed into built-up land, which has led to increasingly aggregated patterns for built-up land and fragmented patterns for cultivated land. The "general urban planning" zoning schemes drive urban expansion in different directions and cause multi-center urban spatial patterns, while increases in GDP and population are not always the main driver for different land use types.

National Natural Science Foundation of China
; National Key Research and Development Program of China
; Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China
; Excellent Young Teachers Program of Higher Education of Guangdong Province, China
; Provincial Significant Innovation Program of Guangdong Colleges